Short answers, pulled from the story.
GameSpot was founded on the 1st of May, 1996, by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein under their company SpotMedia Communications. The three founders had left their roles at IDG in January 1996 to build an online gaming platform.
Jeff Gerstmann was fired from GameSpot on the 28th of November, 2007, because advertiser Eidos Interactive threatened to pull advertising revenue after Gerstmann gave Kane and Lynch: Dead Men a 6 out of 10 review. GameSpot's Jon Davison confirmed this account after Gerstmann's non-disclosure agreement was nullified in March 2012.
Fandom, Inc. has owned GameSpot since October 2022, when it acquired the site along with Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News, and Comic Vine from Red Ventures.
GameSpot uses a 1-10 integer scale introduced in its current form in 2013, with each number assigned a label: 10 is Masterpiece, 9 is Superb, 8 is Great, 7 is Good, 6 is Fair, 5 is Mediocre, 4 is Poor, 3 is Bad, 2 is Terrible, and 1 is Abysmal. The system evolved from category-based scores to a unified score in 2007, which initially allowed half-point increments before switching to integers only.
Chris Wanstrath worked as a web developer at GameSpot before leaving in 2008 to co-found GitHub. Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion.
According to a Compete.com study, GameSpot.com attracted at least 60 million visitors annually by October 2008.